


nodus tollens

by brekker



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Established Relationship, Heavy Angst, M/M, POV Second Person, POV Simon, did someone ask for..., it's alright i hate myself for it too, no? well that's tragic because here it is anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-08 22:14:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13467660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brekker/pseuds/brekker
Summary: You had left a Simon-shaped imprint in the magical atmosphere when you had your magic, but the lack of it left dead echoes inside of you in return.You realize that this hole in your entire being might be the one Baz had been right about so many months ago.





	nodus tollens

**Author's Note:**

> • nodus tollens — n. the realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore
> 
> i feel the need to mention that this has spoilers (but i would also like to think you aren't reading Carry On fic if you haven't read the book (aka subjected yourself to a life of obsession) but who even knows) so you were warned and i'm not proud that i did this but here, have some second person Simon angst

_You dream about the Mage and the color green, and you smell smoke. You smell fire. You taste salt. Then you turn around and it’s Ebb, and Crowley, she’s beautiful and gold and she smiles like nothing hurts, but something isn’t right. You can taste soot in the back of your throat now, as if your insides are burning and your eyes are starting to burn, but you don’t know if it’s tears or the fire circling around you. You want to reach for Ebb, but your hands won’t move. You think you hear Penelope. You think you hear Baz._

_Ebb opens her mouth, hair fluttering and flames flicking, but she just breathes. She only breathes out once before the blood starts. Her teeth are pink and it’s like a fucking waterfall on the front of her dress. You take a long blink because you want to avoid looking at her, and then it’s the Mage._

_He looks at you like you’ve betrayed him. He looks at you like you’re hurting him._

_And then—_

 

* * *

 

You think the sound of your clock hitting the wooden floor in an otherwise silent room jolted you awake. You have to pull your wings back in, closer to your back, because your lamp’s on the floor, too. It takes you a long moment of trying to remember how to breathe through the smothering heat wrapping itself around you before you realize your phone is down there as well. You’re probably going to shatter the screen one of these nights, if you haven’t already.

You instinctively start to reach for it because you want to call him. You feel like, for a split second, you _need_ to.

But then you wonder what the fucking point is.

He already knows you have these dreams.

Sometimes he’s there when you do because it’s his cold hands on your overheated skin that jars you awake instead, your lungs pulling it a sharp breath instinctively. He’s the one that reminds you to _inhale, exhale_ ; the one that pushes his fingers through your damp curls until your heart stops feeling like it’s going to either hammer itself out of your chest or crawl up your throat with the urge to puke. He’s the one that wraps you back up.

He already knows that you want to rip your wings, your tail, off because they itch and it feels like they’re the source of all the heat and it makes you feel so nauseous. He knows you want to crawl out of your skin in the middle of the night.

And what’s the point of making him feel useless when you can just leave him alone and let him sleep for once?

You feel like you’re going to wake up with these nightmares for the rest of your life. Your chest is always going to ache, your skin is always going to burn, your head is always going to hurt, and all you’ll ever want is to _go off_ because it feels like it’s the only hope you’ll ever have of releasing this feeling—because you love him (by all the magic in the universe, you love him so much), but Baz can only do so much and his fingers will never be able to untangle the snarl in your heart. That tangle of visceral anger and sadness and acrimony that resides in your ribcage like a stone and makes you feel _so sick_ constantly.

You love him, but you’re bitter. You’re so bitter and you don’t want to be.

But in these moments of darkness and loneliness, you’ll remember as intimately as if you had felt it yesterday, the way your magic felt like static, another pulse, an exposed wire inside of you—and there won’t be a way to get it out. You will feel wound up, shattered like blown glass, and bleeding and there will be nothing you can do about it.

Except maybe cry.

And even that, you don’t want to do because it feels like a waste. An absolute fucking waste.

Because a part of you is gone and empty, and nothing—surely not something as so banally Normal as _crying_ —will bring it back or help you cope with it. You had left a Simon-shaped imprint in the magical atmosphere when you had your magic, but the lack of it left dead echoes inside of you in return.

You realize that this hole in your entire being might be the one Baz had been right about so many months ago.

You feel like a husk, and you feel like it’s getting bigger.

 

* * *

 

“Simon?”

You’re not _looking_ at anyone.

Penny had tried her best to talk to you this morning, but you had skirted around her like a skittish animal and she knows what that means. You wonder if she called Baz to come and ‘check’ on you since she had classes and no time to sit around, silently trying to unravel you. You wish you had classes today. At least then, you could avoid _this_ —this moment where you have to remember everything you are and everything you _aren’t_ , and you have to lock your jaw so you don’t say something you don’t mean because—

Well, because this isn’t fifth year anymore where you think you’re better off hurling what you can at Baz because he gets under your skin like no one else. Maybe it’s in softer and more loving ways nowadays, but it doesn’t change the fact that Basilton fucking Pitch can crawl under your skin and burrow himself to your bone if he wants to. There was a time in your life where you didn’t know what to do with that and all it did was feed this insatiable, misplaced anger and what you thought was hatred for years. But sometimes…

Sometimes the feeling of him around you lights you up that way again, and it’s not fair to him. It’s not fair to Baz at all, who has done nothing but love you through this.

_I choose you. Simon Snow, I choose you._

It’s not his fault any more than it’s yours, you know this.

You just don’t know how to sort through all this anger and bitterness. Because you know that it doesn’t belong anywhere except for at the universe for being so cruel to you—for chewing you up with a mouthful of daggers and spitting you back out, but you don’t know how to _cope_ with that. It feels like such a hopeless and aimless rage, and even though it’s not directed specifically at Baz, sometimes he becomes the target because he’s familiar.

Because you _did_ spend years angry at him and it feels like it might be as close as you can get to the things you lost—as if it’s the closest you can get to _going off_ and feeling some kind of relief.

But you’re not angry at him anymore. The last thing you want to do is hurt him because it’s not fair to him. He’s not the reason you lost your magic. He’s not the reason you’re haunted by the ghosts of all that vanished.

You’re just not realizing that your suffering is inevitably his, too. You don’t have to lash out at him with a razor tongue to hurt him—you never really have.

“ _Simon_.”

You close your eyes and clench your fists on the table. It hurts. It hurts so fucking much.

You really do wish that crying would help so maybe you would stop bashing into walls, stop throwing punches where your fists can’t really take the damage (because you had long ago spat your objections to Penny or Baz spelling your bruises or open wounds healed because _if you’re going to be a fucking Normal now, you might as well heal like one_ ), and stop having all these nightmares about the Mage and Ebb—or stop having all these wistful dreams of Watford and magic and warmth (which might as well be nightmares, too).

You want to sleep, but you don’t even remember what the sensation feels like anymore.

But then you’re crying anyway. You don’t know when it started because you didn’t want it, but you’re crying because it’s all your heart knows how to do. You pull in an ugly breath, broken and rattling, and you fucking—

Sob for all that you have and all that you don’t.

And Baz wraps his arms around you as tight as he can (which makes you cry harder because this isn’t fair to him) and you bury your face into his shoulder after he gets you to turn around in his arms. He smells like cedar and the skin of his neck is cool against your flushed face, and you want him to fill this shell. You want him to untangle you, lay you back out, and remind you that you’re still Simon Snow, with or without magic.

But then you know that it doesn’t matter because he can’t. Nothing really can.

You don’t want to be the hole he was right about, but it feels like it’s just getting bigger inside of you.

**Author's Note:**

> i actually do kinda hate myself for writing this and i was going to write semi-angst with snowbaz fluff in the end, but it didn't really go as planned OBVIOUSLY. sorta have an idea for a series with this but also not sure how to go about executing it, so who knows if it'll ever leave my brain ok bye (also where can i petition and/or bribe Rainbow to write that sequel? link me??)


End file.
